Trips & Reports

Fairly efficient apart from Gary having the brought the wrong colour wellies so having to go back to Bernies to buy a new pair. Comic relief was provided by Cambridge University. Gaping Ghyll was very impressive! Came out the entrance in the foggy dark and somehow managed to find our way back to the car without getting lost. Impressive instinctive navigation by Gover and Andy G! A great fun trip. But where were the freshers???

The trip got off to a good start, with all four cars leaving the container at 8:30am. I was in Chuck's car and we made it to Outside in easily under an hour and a half. We'd got our breakfasts in front of us as the other groups started to arrive. After all gorging ourselves suitably, we zoomed off to Hitch n Hike to pick up the lights. The speedy departure was only slightly marred by Chuck forgetting... read more

I love Giants. Trip complete with kite flying.

I love Giants, It got me all wet and dirty!!!

Went in at 1pm with 2 freshers (including me), and 3 experienced cavers. Fun, wet (deep wellingtons filling fun), narrow Ss & waterfalls to climb back up & crawl under. We only just got lost but we made the most of it in an extravaganza of waterfalls crawls & traverses (I fell :D). On the way back we had a few hoots moans cackles and other weird noises, collecting the ropes that had been left for us. Got changed in the dark... read more

An excellent day out and fun was had by all (I hope). My car left an hour early so as we could return yesterdays lights ti Hitch n Hike. Due to the obligatory browsing of gear and a quick look the Peak Cavern resurgence we arrived just before the second car in Outdoor Cafe. Doing the trip a second time made it much more enjoyable as we knew our way around and there were less groups down there. Tom... read more

Speaking as someone who actually had fish and chips (Chuck had sausage, as I'm sure photos will show later), I'd have to disagree with Chuck's description of them as "rather good". Chips were okay. Fish was horrible. Good trip though. ;-)

This was a fun trip, less disjointed than the day before, despite us going in as one big group. We knew there was at least one other group in at the same time, but it was considerably less busy than the day before! We started with a small through trip through a nearby mine level, getting the freshers dirty for the first time. Whilst this was going on we met a chap from the Eldon who told us of his recent... read more

A really fun freshers trip! It all started early on when Chuck picked me and Kevin up at 8.20 and forgot about picking up Mark (two weeks on the trot Mark, are you getting the hints? ;)) At the container I suited and booted the freshers and paniced a little because we ran out of gear! We headed to Outside for some breakfast where they successfully fed all of us pretty quickly. For the record arriving too late for breakfast... read more

Another fun trip down Long Churn! Well done to all the new people! You all seemed really enthusiastic and great! What a hardcore lot you all are what with being fine with all the water!

A great intro to caving! This was my first venture into a cave! What a great time I had... Suppose it was already going to be a laugh after what Chuck said in the car (see gossip pages for that classic!... no one need worry about any stiffs). So after arriving in the Dales after a Bernie's breakfast it was onto changing into the caving gear, an interesting experience... I noticed an isolated house close by; I bet they must have... read more

A really successful trip down Long Churn. We were slightly worried about the weather however we decided to make a go of it before the rain came in (keeping a constant eye on what the weather was doing at all times). Dr Bannisters (the entrance chute) was the wettest I've ever seen it and keeping good footing on the way down was a challenge. Water-a-plenty for upper long churn. We speeded through the cheese press with no issues... read more

The following may or may not have happened ;) At ten to 8 Kevin and Andy efficiently rolled up at the Shell garage to pick up Mark. After a slight wait we headed to the container to find Ade already parked up and dozing in his car. After waking him up we packed our ropes whilst Mark helpfully took pictures of us stuffing the 160 odd metres of rope and other gear into the bags. By half eight we'd left the... read more

Overall, an absolutely fantastic trip! Kev's beat me to it so I'll just add a few bits rather than repeating everything he wrote! The day started fairly badly, having not had much sleep, being slightly achy from a day's digging and having a horrible cold, but the smell of damp caving gear increased my enthusiasm no end and off I went to the Shell garage to await my lift from Andy & Kev. 20 mins and a phonecall later they turned... read more

A lazy day in Lancaster in lovely Easegill for a gentle potter about. After quite an efficient start to the day we drove to Bull Pot Farm, passing by lots of flooded rivers and having to negotiate a partly flooded road down to BPF. As a result we decided that Lancaster was our only option really in Easegill, especially when we saw the huge amount of water gushing down Bull Pot of the Witches and the fact we'd only brought... read more

A nice fun easy trip, pretty river in the main chamber bit and a very unusual ladder climb (monkey man rigging). The wet crawly bit was unpleasant, but it was quite pretty after that. Found two toads at the bottom of the ladder which si then carefully stowed in his tackle sack and gently carried out! (talking to them all the way :s ). Also we had tea and lovely cake in the cave! this should be done in EVERY... read more

A fairly easy and not too inspiring day out, but a nice cave to tick off your Mendip wish list. Entrance is locked concrete shaft in deep shakehole in farmers field, ask permission and for the key at the farm (very nice people). Entrance drops down a few easy short pitches and from there its more or less horizonal all the way, a combination of rift, trickling stream passage, a few climbs but nothing too spectacular or pretty.... read more

This was hardwork! I agree with the description of this being a 'foreboding place'. Thank goodness we managed to find the way around the round trip otherwise it would have been a lot of effort and not much success!

We split into a girly and smelly boy trip at the entrance, its not often we get girly trips!:) A lot wetter than when we were last there-makes finding the route to waterfall chamber a bit easier! lots of fun waterfall climbs where you couldnt avoid getting a face full of waterfall! Caught the boys up at the ladder and proceeded down towads the sump. Unfortunately marianna had got very cold by this point due to lack of neofleece and... read more

A supurb and very unusual cave. We've heard so much about this cave during our work on the Moors but never had a chance to visit it to the end. Some interesting flooded passage and cross-rifts (with very little air space!) lead to an amazing stream passage. The cave even includes a fun zero airspace duck! At the end is The Font which is a large deep pool with water welling up from below. We spent some time digging beyond... read more

Great to finally get round to doing Bogg Hall. After a lovely sunny change outside Richards house we took a short walk to the actual resurgence entrance to wet our wetsuits. The entrance is a low archway bellowing water out. Upstream the River Dove was completely dry. The low archway goes in for a couple of metres before walls are reached and the floor lowers into the sumped passage (approximately 10-15m) into Bogg Hall. Not... read more

The entrance series is tight!

Like what Matt says, excellent trip. The entrance series is a lot tighter than I thought it would be, up there with Large Pot in terms of getting-stuckedness. Going through head first is worse, I think. First pitch was also pretty jammed, oh the benefits of being little! Just as the guide-book says, the final two pitches have loose stuff, all of which would fall pretty much in the line of the rigging, and the rubble pile at the bottom is... read more

This wasn't just Carlswark, oh no, it was bigger. And Better. Caves done: Bosson Hole (through trip) Mine Level No.2 (three level, entered bottom) Keyhole Cave (through trip) Mine Level No.3 (short and sweet) Mine Level No.10 (under Ivy Green, big chamber, could try to climb up rift) Mine Level No.4 (really quite big, good fun) Carlswark Gin Carlswark Resurgence (very, very muddy) More to come...

This was the first caving trip for the mini! A Mini Adventure :p